


Retail Therapy

by KiaraAlexisKlay



Series: kcbingo2020 [1]
Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, My First Smut, kcbingo2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24723631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiaraAlexisKlay/pseuds/KiaraAlexisKlay
Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world you find all sorts of things - and people - when you go shopping.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Series: kcbingo2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787557
Kudos: 25





	Retail Therapy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yokan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yokan/gifts).



> Okay, so this is my first foray into this fandom as a writer though I have lurked here for about a year. I want to thank the lovely Yokan who has been a big inspiration and the reason I even accepted this Bingo Card to begin with.

Written for: Klaroline Bingo 2020  
@klaroline-events  
#kcbingo2020

Prompt: SHOPPING TRIP

~ Retail Therapy ~

“Do you think this atrocious shade of…camo…makes my posterior look fat?”

“Seriously?!”

Caroline turned around from the shirt she had picked up and was eyeballing, to look at the persistent thorn in her flesh.

Klaus Mikaelson, Original Vampire and the Original Hybrid, was looking at her with a familiar puppy beggar pout on his crimson lips, his stormy blue gray eyes shifting and dancing with the shadows and the color of a truly, atrocious patterned camouflage pants, one of the suspenders from the high-waisted bibbed portion of the waders flopping off the hanger.

“Oh my god, those are terrible,” Caroline couldn’t keep the offensive horror out of her voice, nor resist wrinkling her nose in distaste. Okay, so what if she may have grown up in small town Virginia, but come on! She hadn’t hung out with the rural farming and hunting groups growing up, she was what would be considered a townie, thank you very much. Despite how eventually much time she came to prance about the woods surrounding Mystic Falls she never actually dressed the part.

“So you don’t think I should add it to my apocalypse wardrobe?” Those smirking lips taunted her with the tease of dimples and Caroline rolled her eyes in an attempt to divert her attention.

“I think that nothing I say will stop you if you set your mind to something. However, it’s on you to deal with Rebekah when she inevitably complains about your lack of fashion sense.”

Turning away so she didn’t have to see his stupid face, Caroline pulled her own face at the shirt in front of her, sighing as the practical portion of her mind screamed at her for its necessity. The long sleeved shirt was just slightly bigger than what she’d normally purchase, but it was made of a thermal waffle material that would come in handy as the temperature started dropping with winter’s onset. Though being a vampire meant that she didn’t feel the cold the same way she would if she were still human, much like a reptile her body would get sluggish and eventually die. She had no intentions of being a Vampire Popsicle, thank you very much!

“That shade of olive actually would look very nice against your complexion, Love,” Klaus’s voice caressed her ear and she couldn’t stop the shudder or thunder of her heart at his sudden nearness.

She knew she should have been keeping a better eye on her surroundings, but even she knew it was impossible to keep track of the swiftness of an Original.

“Thanks,” she grumbled, and then snapped the price tag off and made sure there wasn’t a magnetic tab as well. Society may have crumpled into the apocalypse but the stupid anti-theft systems were still alive and kicking.

“How did we get here again?”

~*~*~

“You have got to be kidding me,” she grumbled. Those words were to be the precursor of many curses to come in the weeks and months to follow.

Currently covered in dirt, sweat, and other forms of grime she didn’t even want to guess the origins of, Caroline’s once golden curls were sweat matted and twisted in various braids and twists and yanked back with one of her precious few remaining hair ties and a bandanna she had lucked into. The hair and gunk matched the sturdy cargo pants that she couldn’t remember the last time she was able to wash- a fact that legitimately hurt her soul - hiking boots she would snap someone’s neck for eyeballing, and a couple layers of shirts. 

Who would have thought they would ever see the day when Cheerleader Captain Caroline Forbes was anything less than well-groomed? 

Nails that hadn’t seen a proper manicure in gods knew how long were cracked and shortened as much as she could get away with. It didn’t take a genius to realize that tapered acrylic nails were not the smartest investment with the way the world had turned. By now it was all natural nails and Caroline was ashamed to be so pleased that they were so sturdy after years of being roughed up in order to bond the acrylic.

“What’s up, Gorgeous?”

Lorenzo St. John had been a gift and a curse from a very finicky deity and Caroline found herself in equal measure comforted and frustrated with his presence. The former Augustine Society captive had been born in an earlier time and his ability to roll with the sudden lack of luxuries had been invaluable in her survival trial by fire.

“Take a look,” she passed the precious pilfered binoculars to her partner, and then proceeded to pout. This wasn’t part of the plan, damnit.

Enzo brought the binoculars to his eyes and Caroline quietly huffed her irritation, only feeling slightly better as her companion let out soft curses of his own.

“Well, that’s going to leave our shopping trip a little more complicated,” the darker haired of the duo grumbled.

“Perhaps, perhaps not.”

It was the discipline forged by too many bad experiences that the pair didn’t make a sound at the unanticipated third voice. That didn’t mean they were slow to react. Well, at least Enzo wasn’t. Caroline had frozen at the unexpectedly familiar accent and her heart leaped as she tried to come to terms with what that could mean.

Reality crashed in at the moment Enzo’s gurgling came to her ears, and she scrambled upright.

“Klaus!”

~*~*~

“Ah, yes, that,” Klaus plucked the shirt out of her grasp and tossed it in the confines of the new backpack she’d grabbed off the shelf. It joined in the mix of items stolen off the shelves in the camping aisle of what once was a Wal-Mart, and now was an eerie mass of creepy shadows and flickering hydrogen bulbs.

Knives and multi tools of all sorts, paracord, mini & mid-size first aid kits, thick and warm woolen socks made for boots [score!], portable cooking gear enough for one or two people, personal water purifier straws, axes, collapsible mini shovels called e-Tools, and so much more already cluttered the back pack. That’s not to mention the duffle full of whatever else they could get. It wasn’t just them on this particular shopping trip; there were human mouths and bodies to feed and clothe that were counting on the bounty of this little spree.

It shouldn’t surprise Caroline at this point, at how well it seemed Klaus took to this type of survival. It was just one more fact that she was getting to know of the Original. Despite having more money than most countries had in their budgets and treasuries, the survivalist nature of being born in a time when there were no modern conveniences had shaped Klaus and his siblings into the ultimate survivors. His ability to go from great riches and all the splendor of kings to roughing it like the rest of society was almost admirable.

Not that she’d ever tell him that any time soon; His ego already being massive enough.

“Yeah…that,” Caroline swallowed past the lump in her throat and proceeded to grab as much as she could. Shirts, ponchos, more socks …as much as she wanted to hit other parts of the store, she knew the survival of her little group depended on this stuff first. 

‘That’ being the fact that in an effort to ‘reset’ the balance, several covens of witches and wizards attempted to reverse what the Original Witch had done. The idiots forgot that it was due to their own arrogance and negligence that nature had allowed the creation of vampires in the first place. Magic and the creatures born of it that were now myth due to the witches ‘getting rid’ of them leaving only the human witches and the werewolf clans who assisted them.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

And as the great Ian Malcolm once said…life finds a way.

The backlash of the spell those covens had attempted had far reaching effects that started when the magic erupted and went wild. Creatures of myth and legend now joined the witches, werewolves, vampires, and hybrids and human society was the first to feel the violent teeth of it. But to make things worse, even the humans weren’t spared the atrocity.

Oh, no.

Human witches attempting to curse the vampire and hybrids had that curse turned back on them tenfold when the magic went rogue. The curse against the undead became humanities downfall. Now every human had the ability to become the undead, but not the vampire kind, oh no that would have been too easy.

Caroline had watched too many episodes of The Walking Dead and there was no way she was going to go down under a subpar undead creature’s mindless unquenchable hunger.

“Caroline,” her eyes shut at the sound of her name in his raspy accent.

~*~*~

Caroline didn’t know what she meant when she spoke his name. A name that has haunted her memories through dreams and regret these past few years since their last meeting; the powerful guilt of what if? Regardless, they didn’t have time for any of the drama that seemed drawn to him like a moth to an open flame.

“Hello, love,” those wicked dimples popped out in time to the achingly familiar endearment, and no, Caroline you were not going to melt.

“I can’t believe you’re here. Put Enzo down, now! Quietly! Gently,” she hissed, fists clenching against the dual needs to either grab the man before her or smooth her gritty hair, suddenly ashamed even more of her bedraggled appearance. 

Enzo dangled from a single hand grasping his throat, raising him upright though he was only an inch or so shorter than the curly haired blond devil himself.

“Now, why should I do that, sweetheart? He attacked me,” crimson lips quirked and blue eyes taunted her with their mischievous glint. “A man has a right to defend himself.”

Caroline cast a quick look over her shoulder at the building a relatively short distance away, and the moaning mass parody of human flesh that had her cursing earlier, and then back at her own personal demon.

“Klaus,” she sighed, shoulders drooping in resignation. 

“Hmm,” head tilting wolfishly to take in her appearance and Caroline had never wished so hard for a hole to swallow her up. But Enzo was beginning to run out of air, and wheezing, and it was possible his flailing limbs might bring attention they were trying to avoid.

So swallowing, her pride and the lump in her throat, she raised her chin and asked, “Please?”

She was so proud her voice didn’t crack, and actually came out somewhat firm, glaring at the man who harangued her with his person even when not physically present.

“Well, now since you asked so nicely,” that smirk made her want to drop her fangs and bite into him; Klaus opened his palm to drop the other man without further ado.

~*~*~

“We need to get as much as we can,” Caroline reluctantly moved away from the stunning heat of the Hybrid and grabbed the backpack that she had designated for her only, only pausing to put the shirt in question in that one as opposed to the other. She was thankful for vampire strength and endurance, as she grabbed the various duffels and backpacks, some filled with more of one thing than another, but all necessary.

“Quite,” Klaus murmured and grabbed his own share. 

They were truly lucky, Caroline thought, cautiously stepping out of the camping and sporting goods aisle. This particular shopping center had been locked tight at the beginning, rows of shopping carts blocking any entrances, and the interior was made as secure as possible. 

But all it took was one death.

The rest was history.

That meant that there was a greater quantity of the stuff that was needed, yet there was still a lot that was left to be desired. All of the dairy products and produce were a rotting mess that offended her heightened senses, and she didn’t know how Klaus – who’s own senses were far superior to hers, being both an older vampire as well as a werewolf – could stand it.

The pair made quick work of attaching the extra duffels to the rope dangling from the skylight, and with a quick tug they were raised up to the roof by their counterparts.

~*~*~

Enzo grasped at his throat, chest bellowing as he took in great, heaving breaths and Klaus tutted, clucking his tongue, and giving the darker haired man a not so gentle nudge with the toe of his boot.

“My, my, such dramatics. You’re a vampire, mate, you don’t need to breathe.”

“Not the point, Klaus!” Caroline huffed, eyes narrowing further and refusing to break eye contact with the Original Hybrid before her. “I hope you didn’t hurt him or the binoculars you jerk!”

She most certainly was not going to focus on how good he looked, his jeans, boots, and Henley a throwback to, dare she say it, better days? She told herself she was just jealous that he appeared as if he skipped out on the dirty side of survival that had become the norm.

“Isn’t it?” he taunted, arms moving to cross behind his back, pulling that shirt taunt over muscles she had no business noticing. 

“Not. The. Point! What are you doing here? I thought you were, you know, somewhere far from here,” Caroline couldn’t resist waving one hand about in her frustration. “New Orleans is somewhere out that way or so.”

Here, being the butt crack of what had once been a nice, rural Wal-Mart somewhere in what used to be Anywhere, Midwest, America. 

“Indeed,” Klaus agreed and Caroline wanted to scream. “Though New Orleans is more like in that direction,” and he had the audacity to mimic her hand waving, just in a different direction. Those dimples begged her to join in the joke. “And I was under the impression you were still in Mystic Falls, love, in that direction.”

“I can’t believe you,” Caroline grumbled, spinning on her heel to turn away, allowing her hand permission to reach up and grasp her grungy braids, the ends so long even tied back the whole mess was getting dangerously close to reaching her rump. It was probably best and more practical to cut it, but she didn’t want to risk dulling a good blade just for some vanity.

“Come now, Caroline. After so long apart, don’t be this way,” that dark, velvety voice crooned from just at her shoulder, and Caroline didn’t bother covering her shudder at his sudden nearness.

Damn Original speed.

“I take it that’s your stalker, Gorgeous?” Enzo piped up and both blondes glanced back at the reminder of his presence. 

“Stalker?” Klaus cocked a brow and Caroline just knew this wasn’t going to end well. She put a staying hand on his forearm out of habit.

“I told you no good comes from anything out of Damon’s mouth,” Caroline rolled her eyes and gave Enzo an unimpressed look. She startled as Klaus twisted his arm so now their fingers were threaded though and palm-to-palm. 

Her breath hitched as she stared at where they were connected, his innate werewolf warmth threatening to overwhelm the chill she hadn’t known she ‘d become used to even through the fingerless mittens she wore. His clean hand was grasping her dirty one and wasn’t that ironic?

“Enzo is it?” The smile the Hybrid gave her friend was anything other than friendly and Caroline had seen this play out one too many times with a different dark haired companion.

“Hybrid Number One, I take it,” the other Brit snarked back. He slowly rose to his feet massaging his throat with one hand.

“Idiots the both of you,” Caroline sighed again. 

This was becoming a habit.

“Why don’t you run along now, and have some fun? I’ll keep the lovely Caroline company, and we’ll grab what is needed and join you back at the sham that is your camp?”

~*~*~

“There’s the important stuff,” Klaus commented and Caroline turned her gaze from the skylight to see Klaus’s gaze was still on the survival gear being yanked up. This wasn’t the first trip, and the dry goods and other portable food stuffs had been among that first sent up.

“Yeah,” she agreed and Klaus turned those chameleon shaded eyes to her. There was a soft glow as his wolf peered through the veil of stormy blue.

“Let’s get the fun stuff, shall we?”

Klaus didn’t wait for her to respond and Caroline was left stupidly staring at the spot he had been, ears only just registering the whoosh of his passage.

“Oh, you,” she sputtered and then snarled as she whirled about.

Fun stuff huh?

~*~*~

The pipes creaked and groaned, but after a couple spats and false starts, the water started to run.

“Yes!”

Caroline fist pumped her victory and then got to work. She stared at herself in the mirror that had seen better days, having been rigged at some point from its previous tenants to do the best it could for its tiny population that was unfortunately doomed. She did her best to ignore the mass of what had been a person lying in the far corner where Caroline had dispatched it. 

The backpack now stuffed with ‘Caroline’ goods was hanging off one of those Command Strips she had strung up, opened but ready to be zipped in a hurry.  
A gaunt stranger stared back at her, her slow blinking the only evidence that it was her that looking back at herself. 

“Screw it,” she huffed and then began to strip her top and undershirts, tossing them to the side to be folded like origami and stuffed in a little baggie to be washed later, nearly groaning in relief to strip the little bandeau bra off. The scissors she had filched from the office supply section would have to do because she hadn’t seen any hairdresser scissors going down the hygiene aisles.

She did score some hairbrushes and more ties that she grabbed as many as she could [read: all of them left even the little girl ones and those stupid small rubber ones] like a miser and did a little happy jig down the aisle. She had given the curling irons and hair strengtheners a longing glance, but they weren’t very practical with electricity being so hard to come by these days and she needed the space for other stuff: like weapons and water bottles.

It was only the work of a few minutes before huge swathes of almost dreadlocked hair fell from her determined snips, instantly making Caroline feel thirty pounds lighter and so much better about herself. She had finger combed the twists and braids out as much as she could but it was still rough going.

Humming softly to her as she began to work, years of YouTube tutorials and the horrors of cheerleading summer camps came in handy and soon she had a somewhat decent cut going on. The lanky ropes of hair were discarded into another baggie; it wouldn’t do if some unsuspecting witch were to come along and grab her hair for some nefarious spell, unlikely as that may be. But Caroline wasn’t going to take any chances.

Finally satisfied the whole mess was as good as she was going to get it, now closer to shoulder length, she put her supplies and hair cuttings into a side pocket to be properly disposed of later.

Grabbing a bottle of body wash next and an actual washrag, she poured out the liquid gold and got to work.

She really did purr then, the water having actually heated up, and weeks of filth started to slough off. It was a shame there wasn’t time to actually wash her clothes, or even her entire body, but the fact she got something of a bath was a miracle in and of itself.  
Suds rolling down the front of her body between her breasts, Caroline paused for a moment, unsure why her heart was beginning to hammer within her chest, and she held her breath and listened out of habit. Tense moments passed with nothing jumping out at her and she finally began to breathe again. Teeth worrying her bottom lip, her eyes met her own blue in the mirror, and she firmed her resolve.

Hands sopping with warm water and lather, she hissed in pleasure as some of the wetness advanced the movement of her fingers to dip below and be partially absorbed by the cotton band of her panties. With another beat of her stuttering heart, she was quick to unbutton and unzip her pants and tugged them and her panties down far enough she could get the soap and hands easy access.

Caroline didn’t know when her eyes shut, but she was vaguely aware that at some point she was bracing herself against the sink as she cleaned herself. Biting her tongue against the moan that wanted to erupt, she tasted the copper tang of her own blood as the rough material of the warm rag abraded her innermost parts. God, it felt so good to finally be somewhat clean! Her hips found themselves chasing the rag in an unconscious rhythm and it was only when Caroline realized the warmth between her legs was more than just warm water and soap, she opened her eyes to the mirror and paused all movement.

Klaus’s eyes scorched her own in their intensity as the blue disappeared into the darkness spreading through the veins under them, his wolf lightening the edges like the sun peeping through an eclipse.

“Don’t stop now on my account, sweetheart,” that voice of sin rumbled as he came up behind her, hips pressing against her derriere with absolute confidence, and Caroline hissed again as she felt him against her. She tried to straighten but his growl and the hand upon the small of her back discouraged that and she shifted back into place to his pleased rumble.

“It’s been a while for you, hasn’t it, love?” he crooned, the hand on her back migrating to join her single arm on the sink, pressing their lower halves together just as much as the heat of his chest tormented her back. His other wrapped around her waist and held her hand with the rag in place between her thighs, adding an unexpected pleasurable pressure that had a keening moan become trapped in her throat.

“A while for what?” she breathed, unable to resist taunting him, here, even now; hissing when those long fingers flexed between her own, rapidly cooling rag and her own fingers the only barrier between where she really wanted touched and his skin.

“For what indeed,” he hummed, breathing against her neck. The goosebumps that erupted down her back seemed to encourage him, not that he needed it, as her body betrayed her.

When the double set of his fangs ghosted along the back of her neck and the juncture between her throat and shoulder, she couldn’t – wouldn’t- hold in groan of anticipation. It was odd, wasn’t it? No matter what had happened between them, even when he was going to kill her, she had never feared the sting of his fangs?

“So tense,” he murmured, the prickle of his fangs doing nothing to help the surge of wetness gushing through her core. “So…dirty.”

“Why don’t you do something about that?” Caroline managed to grit out and she met those golden eyes with her own monster peering out, always ready for what needed to be done nowadays.

“I could,” Klaus arched a thoughtful brow, his hand between her thighs taking her own with it as he drug them up over her belly, to graze against one breast. Caroline shifted with the motion and Klaus pressed her further against the sink.

“I could clean you all up,” he mused, their mutual grip on the rag going back under the still warm water, taking a moment to give a slight squeeze to drain some of the excess water, before returning it to the front of her body and beginning to trail it down again, this time flicking the opposite breast and Caroline found herself growling, the veins under her eyes growing darker and the hint of her own fangs coming to play. “Wash away all this filth; make you new.”

Long moments were spent as they cleaned herself with some serious eye contact going on through the mirror.

“What if I just want you to make me dirty?”

Caroline cocked a challenging brow and that was the last thing she did before the rag was tossed in front of her on the shelf by the sink, and Klaus plunged two fingers between her legs without any warning whatsoever.

“Klaus!” she howled.

Caroline’s now free hand gripped the sink beside her other and Klaus’, and she keened as he crooked those artist fingers and…hello! She grit her teeth automatically at the noise, and tried to breathe through the pleasure, hips chasing the feel of his fingers.

“Caroline!” her name was a curse and a prayer through wolf-shredded vocals.

“Please, please, oh please,” she babbled and Klaus’s strained hiss of, “Yes,” was followed by the slightest pause before she was filled up so completely she could have wept. The next few moments was just the push and pull of their bodies against one another and guttural growls forced down so as not to attract attention.

Klaus had been right that it had been a while for her; it wasn’t long before the familiar tingles began up her spine and core, and soon she was sobbing her release as Klaus followed not long after.  
Breathless, and bent over the dirty sink of an abandoned Wal-mart in the middle of nowhere with the most dangerous creature on Earth draped over her back, Caroline found a measure of peace that had been missing for far too long in her life.

“Looks like you’re all dirty again, love,” Klaus hummed against the side of her neck, and Caroline didn’t stop herself from leaning her temple against his forehead, closing her eyes.

“Damn, I guess you need to do something about that, too.”

Her lips quirked at the rusty laugh against her neck and smirked at the hand snaking down her front while he gave the side of her head a lingering kiss.

“I just might.”

~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! What a rush! First time posting a story that is *mine* and not something I have beta'd or co-authored in at least a decade. A DECADE. I accept reviews and love


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